Oligonucleotides (ONs) are typically defined as short nucleic acid polymers that are 20 to 200 bases long. It has been well known that aptamers (single-stranded DNA or RNA ONs) can adopt distinct three-dimensional folded structures and bind to...

Cytosine methylation at CpG dinucleotides is a semistable epigenetic marker critical to the normal development of vertebrates. Abnormal levels of methylation are associated with a host of human diseases and disorders, and many diagnostic tools...

In the work presented here we have used a function-based approach to isolate 12 novel cell-penetrating peptides from a 10,000+ member peptide library of rational design. Our unique high-throughput screen differentiates non-membranolytic from...

This diachronic study tracks Louisiana French syllable structure and sound patterns over several decades, offering an in-depth, quantitative evaluation of language death and hybridization. Most scholarly inquiry involving this severely endangered...

The traditional roles of the tumor suppressor protein, p53, in transcriptional regulation are mostly defined in cancer or stressed cells and are centered on control of the cell cycle, DNA repair or senescence. In this thesis, data is presented...

The active human retrotransposon L1 is the most prevalent human retroelement, constituting 17% of the mass of the human genome and contributing significantly to mutagenesis. L1 mutagenizes human genomes in a number of ways including insertional...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding 18-22 long RNAs, which act as key mediators in many cellular processes involved in tumorigenesis including proliferation, differentiation, invasion, and apoptosis. miRNAs repress gene expression by inhibiting...

The objective of this project is to develop novel treatments, using expression-targeted gene therapy and minicell technology, to replace current methodologies used in the clinic for the treatment of carcinomas, especially transitional cell...